This invention relates to a method of producing carrot juice. People drink many kinds of vegetable and fruit juice. For the production of such juice, not only is it necessary that the yield be good but the produced juice must retain the original color and flavor of the vegetable and/or fruit. This invention is in response to such requirement specifically for the production of carrot juice.
According to conventional methods of producing carrot juice, carrots are heated in boiling water for inactivation of enzymes (blanching) and then crushed or grated to squeeze out the juice. For squeezing out the juice in such a process, machines such as a pulper, a screw press, a guinard and a decanter are used either singly or in combination. One of the problems with these conventional production methods is that the juice cannot be squeezed out efficiently because of the structure of the machine for the purpose. Another problem is that the color and flavor elements of original carrots are not extracted efficiently and hence the squeezed liquid is not colored well. Still another problem is that the squeezed liquid acquires an off flavor because it takes a long time for the blanching and its flavor is also adversely affected. In summary, carrot juice of high quality cannot be produced with a high yield by a conventional production method.
In view of the above, U.S. Pat. No. 3,787,589 has disclosed a method of heating carrots in a boiling aqueous solution of an edible acid for inactivation of enzyme, thereafter crushing or grating and using a filter press or the like to squeeze out the juice. Although the juice can be squeezed more efficiently by this method, the improvement is not sufficiently significant. Although the juice obtained by this method contains more color and flavor elements of carrots, the color of the juice is still poor. Although the time required for the blanching has been shortened, the juice retains an off flavor and its flavor is poor because the inactivation of enzymes is still by blanching.
It is therefore an object of the invention to eliminate such problems of conventional methods of producing carrot juice and, in particular, to improve the flavor of the carrot juice by eliminating off flavor from the liquid squeezed from carrots.